RNP Chapter 344 Powerful Firearms
Chapter 344 Powerful Firearms
Chapter 344 Powerful Firearms
Just after the Ming Dynasty Royal Bank officially opened, the banknotes printed by Zhang Qingfeng were also deeply loved by the people of the capital.
Some people also named the Zhuangpiao of the Royal Bank, called Huangpiao, because the portrait of Emperor Wanli was printed on it.
After the establishment of the Royal Bank, and after many businessmen in the capital accepted the banknotes of the Royal Bank, in just one month, at least millions of taels of banknotes circulated in the market.
The reason why it is so circulated is that many people take these bank notes to the bank to exchange for silver, and the bank can exchange them immediately.
Especially at the head office of the Royal Bank in Beijing, as long as you hold bank notes, whether it is one penny, one million taels, or 100 million taels, as long as you come, the bank can exchange it for you into cash within a day.
Seeing that banknotes can be exchanged for silver at any time, both common people and businessmen feel at ease, so they began to use banknotes as banknotes for transactions.
The banknotes of the Royal Bank are not only of very good quality, but also very beautifully printed, and there is no way for others to imitate them.
Therefore, many people like Royal Bank banknotes very much. There is an endless stream of people exchanging banknotes every day. When there are many people, they line up for several streets.
In order to cope with more and more customers, Zhang Qingfeng directly opened five branches in the whole capital.
In other parts of Shuntian Prefecture, several branches have opened one after another.
At present, the most popular businesses of these branches are depositing money and exchanging banknotes.
Especially the banknote business has become the busiest business. Zhang Qingfeng is trying his best to print banknotes, but they can barely supply the market demand.
As the banking business in Beijing became more and more popular, Zhang Qingfeng finally started to open the second batch of branches two months later.
These branches require a lot of manpower and material resources, so Zhang Qingfeng temporarily decided to only open them in some big cities in the coastal provinces, first open six branches, and then expand to other cities after training more available talents.
At the same time, Zhang Qingfeng also hired some people from other money banks to serve as his team.
Two months later, Zhang Qingfeng dispatched the first batch of bank backbones. They will establish the first batch of out-of-province branches of the Royal Bank of Ming Dynasty in Suzhou, Hangzhou, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo and other most developed cities of Ming Dynasty.
In the next few years, the Royal Bank will continue to establish dozens of branches outside the province, basically covering most of the more developed cities.
At the same time, with the booming business of the bank, there are more and more depositors in the Royal Bank. Although the bank stipulates that the minimum deposit amount is more than five taels of silver, it is still unbearable because there are too many people.
A few months later, the bank's deposits reached a figure of 300 million taels of silver.
As for the borrowers, the sum of the borrowed money is less than 50 taels of silver.
So much silver gathering dust in a warehouse is naturally not what Zhang Qingfeng wants to see.
So, he is ready to use the money to start investing.
He wrote an investment plan to Emperor Wanli.
He plans to invest in several shipyards to build large ships, and then hire people to go overseas to participate in overseas trade.
In the Ming Dynasty, the sea ban policy was very strict in the early stage.
After the mid-term, the restrictions were relaxed.
When it came to Emperor Jiajing, the grandfather of Emperor Wanli, the court had completely lifted the sea ban.
After so many years of development, maritime trade has been very developed in the Ming Dynasty.
In particular, Guangzhou Port has a large number of maritime merchants from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe participating in trade exchanges, and it is now the largest port in Ming Dynasty.
It was also because a large amount of silver from Europe flowed into Daming that Zhang Juzheng dared to use silver instead of copper coins and grain to collect taxes.
The development of maritime trade has given birth to a large number of wealthy merchants in the south. Through funding and training scholars, they have formed a huge political force in the tens of hundreds of years in the late Ming Dynasty.
Overseas trade is so profitable, Zhang Qingfeng will naturally not give up.
He promised Emperor Wanli that as long as banks were allowed to intervene in overseas trade, he promised that after sea trade got on the right track, he would be able to earn at least 200 million taels of silver for the inner treasury a year.
After seeing Zhang Qingfeng's plan and hearing the promise of 200 million taels of silver per year, Emperor Wanli agreed without saying a word.
After obtaining the consent of Emperor Wanli, Zhang Qingfeng directly sent people to Tianjin Shan'adong and other places to spend 63 taels of silver to acquire three large shipyards.
At the same time, he asked the Machinery Manufacturing Bureau to start designing machines that could be used in shipbuilding.
After acquiring the shipyard, he asked people to renovate the shipyard, such as expanding the size of the dock, building a new reinforced concrete factory building, building a reinforced concrete wharf, recruiting a large number of shipbuilders, and so on.
At the same time, he also began to purchase timber needed for shipbuilding in various places, and spent millions of taels of silver in a short period of time.
Afterwards, Zhang Qingfeng took a boat to Tianjin himself, and then discussed with a group of top shipbuilders about building a new ship.
The new ship that Zhang Qingfeng plans to build is naturally the Galen sailing ship improved by the British, which is currently the most mainstream sailing ship in the world.
Afterwards, maybe Zhang Qingfeng will build a full schooner, but this will have to wait until the technology matures.
Having experience in designing sailboats in the previous two missions, this time, Zhang Qingfeng directly recorded the drawings, materials needed for construction, and the construction process in detail.
He gave these shipbuilders of Ming Dynasty a break-up explanation, as long as they understand it, there is no need for Zhang Qingfeng to give guidance. He believes that these shipbuilders can make the sailboat he needs.
Perhaps, at present, the shipbuilders of Ming Dynasty are not as good as those of the West, but the gap is not as big as imagined.
After all, the ancients have had thousands of years of rich experience in playing with wood, what they lack is only some theoretical things.
In order to allow craftsmen to understand the structure of the Galenic sailing ship more intuitively, Zhang Qingfeng spent more than half a month personally designing and manufacturing a three-meter-long Galenic sailing ship model.
Let all craftsmen understand the structure and construction process of Galen sailboats as well as precautions.
It took three months for Zhang Qingfeng to return to the capital after Tianjin let everyone understand the construction technology of the galleon.
As soon as he returned to the capital, Zhang Qingfeng wrote to Emperor Wanli, asking him to allow him to design and manufacture artillery and guns and other weapons to equip merchant ships.
He told Emperor Wanli that all merchant ships in the West were equipped with artillery, and every sailor had a musket.
If Ming's merchant ships were not equipped with artillery and muskets, they would be easily bullied or even robbed.
After hearing Zhang Qingfeng's words, Emperor Wanli agreed to Zhang Qingfeng's request. After all, the Ming Dynasty had already imitated the red-clothed cannon and knew the power of the red-clothed cannon.
Afterwards, Emperor Wanli did not let Zhang Qingfeng directly research firearms. Instead, he ordered Zhang Qingfeng to set up a firearms bureau under the name of the Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, and use the firearms bureau to manufacture artillery.
After getting Emperor Wanli's consent, Zhang Qingfeng immediately mobilized a group of capable craftsmen to set up the Firearms Bureau team.
Under the Firearms Bureau, there are three factory departments named Ammunition Manufacturing Factory, Gun Manufacturing Factory, and Cannon Foundry.
The ammunition factory naturally produces gunpowder.
Zhang Qingfeng is going to produce propellant powder and explosive gunpowder with perfect proportions that have been recognized by later generations.
Then, he will also adopt the method of fixed gunpowder to manufacture paper shell bullets in large quantities.
At the same time, the ammunition factory will also produce various shells.
Such as solid bullets, shotguns, chain bullets, and blooming bullets.
In addition, there are grenades, landmines, sea mines, etc., all of which are in charge of the ammunition factory.
As for the gun factory, you can tell from the name that it specializes in the manufacture of hand-held firearms, such as long and short barrel flintlock guns, and so on.
(End of this chapter)